[John Pancoast]

Hahaha Kpt., what a great read and helpful post, thanks ! I was hoping you'd chime in; I know you worked a LOT on the issue.

I'm a big believer that plugging historical performance numbers for whatever into a game doesn't automatically make it "realistic".
Some times it can actually make things less so. I.e, besides the fact that many times historical performance numbers are from "lab" results vs. field results, I believe sometimes developers may realize they're not putting in the historical info. for subject X but in terms of the overall game experience, what they do still produces the desired "realistic" affect.
Take the radar warning receivers i.e. The stock ranges were considered to short vs. the receivers actual (lab or field ?) performance numbers.
Was this an oversight of the developers or was it to fit into the stock 8k environment better, but still producing the desired affect ? "Yes, we know the Metox had a greater range in reality. But the actual crews could see farther than 8k usually too, so we shortened the Metox's range to fit the game's 8k environment better."
Same for, say, the stock depth charges blast radius and other functions. Oversight, or to fit into the game better ? Stock, the escorts only have a 15 minute search time limit along with low crew ratings, escort numbers, etc. i.e.
Were the stock depth charges knowingly made that way to work better with the above limitations ?
I don't know the answer to those questions; just using them as examples of my point which I'm sure you already know and have heard a million times anyway !

Anyway, I'd like to try to add some life to the escort AI and thought I'd kick up the crew ratings in the .rnd file.

I.e.., make all escorts that are Competents into Veteran, all Veteran into Elite.
For various reasons, I just don't find the AI much of a challenge, at any stage of the timeline.
That's not meant as chest thumping, just info.

Realizing the "bowl of spaghetti" that is the SH3 ai sensor controlling files and the limitation that to my understanding, the meat of it's behavior is hardcoded anyway, wonder if my doing the above would help if even a little.

In searching and reading about crew ratings, everything I read mentioned how a better rating made a difference in a submerged scenario but I never found a reference to it affecting the AI's above surface actions.
Hence this threads question. Maybe one of the .dat or cfg files control that more, don't know and I don't really want to mess with those anyway.

I'm only interested in escort behavior. I don't really focus on "Mod A has this piece of equipment but Mod B doesn't so Mod A is more realistic".
One can most times easily add such equipment into any install if desired.

Appreciate your reply and to be clear, none of the above is meant to denigrate yours or anyone else's work in any way and if it seems so, I apologize in advance.